1783--such a big, strong, wealthy mother, too. A little bit of talk
doesn't hurt her any, and it does some of us a heap of good. When a boy
runs away from home, half the glory and fun is in being missed; and if
the folks at home won't say they miss him, why, he must say all the
louder that they are mourning over the loss. But I will say to you--and
I say it with the fullest conviction of its truth--that the people of
the United States could not in any way be induced to take up arms
against Great Britain, save in their own undivided interest.
Individually, as you already know, I love England--not England's fops,
but her people; I love the literature of England, I love her memories, I
esteem and admire her well-executed laws. The literature of England has
been my mental food from boyhood--aye, almost from infancy; and her
memories, her memories! I think of London as Macaulay must have thought
of Athens. Decent Americans--that is, a majority--don't listen to jingo
politicians; and new arrivals with a grievance against England are left
to the _vis medicatrix naturae_. There'll never be another war between
England and the United States. Our Anglo-Saxon element think normally;
and the vast majority of our German citizens have always been on the
sensible and morally right side of national questions--there's nothing
long-haired or cranky about them. I like the Germans because they don't
hanker after the unknown. I believe that most reading Americans--that is
to say three-fourths of all--feel toward England as Irving and Hawthorne
did.--But, from your description, that must be the home of Peters, just
ahead of us."

He was right; and we stopped in front of the old sailor's house. An aged
man, apparently a coal miner, came to the door as our buggy stopped. We
called him to us and inquired concerning Peters, who he told us was
quietly sleeping. Then we asked with regard to stabling accommodations,
and learned that Peters had an old unused stable, the last old horse